1. The Sense
of ‘I am’ Questioner: It is a matter of daily experience that on waking
up the world suddenly appears. Where does it come from? Maharaj: Before
anything can come into being there must be somebody to whom it comes.
All appearance and disappearance presupposes a change against some
changeless background. Q: Before waking up I was unconscious. M: In what
sense? Having forgotten, or not having experienced? Don’t you experience
even when unconscious? Can you exist without knowing? A lapse in memory:
is it a proof of non-existence? And can you validly talk about your own
non-existence as an actual experience? You cannot even say that your
mind did not exist. Did you not wake up on being called? And on waking
up, was it not the sense ‘I am’ that came first? Some seed consciousness
must be existing even during sleep, or swoon. On waking up the
experience runs: ‘I am -- the body -- in the world.’ It may appear to
arise in succession but in fact it is all simultaneous, a single idea of
having a body in a world. Can there be the sense of ‘I am’ without being
somebody or other? Q: I am always somebody with its memories and habits.
I know no other ‘I am’. M: Maybe something prevents you from knowing?
When you do not know something which others know, what do you do? Q: I
seek the source of their knowledge under their instruction. M: Is it not
important to you to know whether you are a mere body, or something else?
Or, maybe nothing at all? Don’t you see that all your problems are your
body’s problems -- food, clothing, shelter, family, friends, name, fame,
security, survival -- all these lose their meaning the moment you
realise that you may not be a mere body. Q: What benefit is there in
knowing that I am not the body? M: Even to say that you are not the body
is not quite true. In a way you are all the bodies, hearts and minds and
much more. Go deep into the sense of ‘I am’ and you will find. How do
you find a thing you have mislaid or forgotten? You keep it in your mind
until you recall it. The sense of being, of 'I am' is the first to
emerge. Ask yourself whence it comes, or just watch it quietly. When the
mind stays in the 'I am' without moving, you enter a state which cannot
be verbalised but can be experienced. All you need to do is try and try
again. After all the sense ‘I am’ is always with you, only you have
attached all kinds of things to it -- body, feelings, thoughts, ideas,
possessions etc. All these self-identifications are misleading. Because
of them you take yourself to be what you are not. Q: Then what am I? M:
It is enough to know what you are not. You need not know what you are.
For as long as knowledge means description in terms of what is already
known, perceptual, or conceptual, there can be no such thing as
self-knowledge, for what you are cannot be described, except as except
as total negation. All you can say is: ‘I am not this, I am not that’.
You cannot meaningfully say ‘this is what I am’. It just makes no sense.
What you can point out as 'this' or 'that' cannot be yourself. Surely,
you can not be 'something' else. You are nothing perceivable, or
imaginable. Yet, without you there can be neither perception nor
imagination. You observe the heart feeling, the mind thinking, the body
acting; the very act of perceiving shows that you are not what you
perceive. Can there be perception, experience without you? An experience
must ‘belong'. Somebody must come and declare it as his own. Without an
experiencer the experience is not real. It is the experiencer that
imparts reality to experience. An experience which you cannot have, of
what value is it to you? Q: The sense of being an experiencer, the sense
of ‘I am’, is it not also an experience? M: Obviously, every thing
experienced is an experience. And in every experience there arises the
experiencer of it. Memory creates the illusion of continuity. In reality
each experience has its own experiencer and the sense of identity is due
to the common factor at the root of all experiencer- experience
relations. Identity and continuity are not the same. Just as each flower
has its own colour, but all colours are caused by the same light, so do
many experiences appear in the undivided and indivisible awareness, each
separate in memory, identical in essence. This essence is the root, the
foundation, the timeless and spaceless 'possibility' of all experience.
Q: How do I get at it? M: You need not get at it, for you are it. It
will get at you, if you give it a chance. Let go your attachment to the
unreal and the real will swiftly and smoothly step into its own. Stop
imagining yourself being or doing this or that and the realisation that
you are the source and heart of all will dawn upon you. With this will
come great love which is not choice or predilection, nor attachment, but
a power which makes all things love-worthy and lovable.

I
AM THAT

Dialogues
of Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

1.
The Sense of ‘I am’

Questioner:

It is a matter of daily experience that on waking up the world
suddenly appears. Where

does
it come from?

Nisargadatta:

Before anything can come into being there must be somebody to whom it
comes. All

appearance
and disappearance presupposes a change against some changeless
background.

Questioner:

Before waking up I was unconscious.

Nisargadatta:

In what sense? Having forgotten, or not having experienced? Don’t you
experience even when

unconscious?
Can you exist without knowing? A lapse in memory: is it a proof of
non-existence?

And
can you validly talk about your own non-existence as an actual
experience? You cannot even

say
that your mind did not exist. Did you not wake up on being called? And
on waking up, was it not

the
sense ‘I am’ that came first? Some seed consciousness must be existing
even during sleep, or

swoon.
On waking up the experience runs: ‘I am -- the body -- in the world.’
It may appear to arise

in
succession but in fact it is all simultaneous, a single idea of having
a body in a world. Can there

be
the sense of ‘I am’ without being somebody or other?

Questioner:

I am always somebody with its memories and habits. I know no other ‘I
am’.

Nisargadatta:

Maybe something prevents you from knowing? When you do not know
something which others

know,
what do you do?

Questioner:

I seek the source of their knowledge under their instruction.

Nisargadatta:

Is it not important to you to know whether you are a mere body, or
something else? Or, maybe

nothing
at all? Don’t you see that all your problems are your body’s problems
-- food, clothing,